A system is anti-fragile when it not only survives chaos, it embraces it and harnesses it for growth.

If I ask you, what is the opposite of fragile?

Your answer could be robust.

And while that seems fine, it is not so.

Picture 3 distinct objects:

Teacup – shatters when thrown (fragile)

Rubber ball – adapts to being stretched, changes its form but doesn’t break (robust)

Immune system – emerges stronger, under stress from disease (anti-fragile)

Fragility is when an object breaks down when external stressors are applied. The true opposite here, would be when a system / object becomes stronger when put under stress.

This concept is developed and written at great length in the book “Antifragile” by Nassim Taleb

Just like fractals, Anti-fragility is fundamental to how complex systems evolve, adapt and thrive.

A system is anti-fragile when it not only survives chaos, but embraces it and harnesses it for growth.

Think:

Evolution : Species harness environmental stressors to evolve

Traders / Investors : Embrace volatility to profit from capital markets

In fact all natural systems are anti-fragile by design.

When we get vaccinated, we are injected with a controlled dose of the same disease we’re trying to prevent, the immune system rushes to fight it and over compensates, builds the capability to combat future exposure to it.

When you workout, you break down the muscles, body over compensates for this and builds more muscle to tackle future workouts, you may have noticed that the same workouts get easier with time.

Anti-fragility is not new, it has existed across natural systems for billions of years, while our internal systems aren’t fragile, we are. We prevent stress and devote too much time in removing any uncertainty / stressors from our lives. This is counter productive. The longer we remain fragile, the harder we break eventually.

We have to intentionally expose ourselves to uncertainty and stress.

Just a few things we could do.

• Go with the flow, avoid micro-planning / managing every little thing
• Work out (walking doesn’t count)
• Throw in a bit of junk food every now and then
• Avoid being trapped by our lifestyle choices
• Expose a small % of our portfolios to extremely high risk / high reward events
• Acquire multi-disciplinary skills which we can leverage and combine to become more valuable
• Add controlled randomness in our routines
• Add diversity to our social circles

This is not an abstract concept, it’s the real deal. Such a life could be uncomfortable at first, but very liberating over the long term.

Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better. – Nassim Taleb